Think back to early 2004. Oil cost around $40 per barrel—on the high side compared to the previous few decades but not much out of the ordinary. Gasoline still cost under $2.00 a gallon for most of the country. The evening news was more concerned with wardrobe gaffes by Janet Jackson (too little, at the Super Bowl) and President Bush (too much, on the USS Abraham Lincoln) than with energy prices.
In retrospect, these were the last days of "normal." Almost everyone in business, the media, and government assumed that the world had plenty of cheap oil...............................................Full Article: Source